Again, it’s obvious that heavy lobbying is in place
to influence Internet policy, as with a front page story in the Washington Post
on Monday, November 18, 2013 by Peter Wallstein and Tom Hamburger, “Internet
gambling battle heats up; 2012 mega-donor lines up lobbyists; Casino magnate
wants U.S. to ban online bets”, link here. The individual involved is Sheldon Adelson.
The article has the expected discussion over whether
online gaming could interfere with the real-world casino business, growing in
many states (including Maryland, with a facility near Baltimore). There’s also the obvious libertarian
objection to a nanny government interfering with voluntary adult behavior, even
if it is potentially “self-harm”. Somehow, I don’t quite buy the image from the
movie “Casino” of a head in a vice.
The article does note that most casino companies are OK with regulated online gambling.
The story recalls some past sequences in my own
practice. I don’t gamble, even though I
visit Las Vegas sometimes (last time was May 2012). In fact, I can recall a day in 1987 when I
ran into management from work while on vacation in Las Vegas. Big memories.
I used to have a lot of my Internet materials on a
site called “hppub.com” which had been an acronym for “High Productivity
Publishing”. In 2005 I moved everything
to “doaskdotell.com”, and let the domain go.
It got picked up by an online gaming company for a while. I had dangling links, which I didn’t get all
fixed at first, so visitors were annoyed when accidentally taken to the
site. This may have been a minor factor
in a ruckus when I was substitute teaching and my content was found. This leads to another discussion – how to
tell from server logs who is likely to be visiting your site, something I had
not learned to monitor in 2005.
Advertisers want webmasters to know their audience, and yet that raises
certain ethical as well as technical and security questions.
No comments:
Post a Comment